Unseen-Chapter-1.Pdf

UN SEEN ANGELS, SATAN, HEAVEN, HELL, AND WINNING THE BATTLE FOR ETERNITY

JACKGRAHAM

Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 www.bethanyhouse.com

Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on ﬁle at the Library of Con- gress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-0-7642-1121-8 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-7642-1222-2 (trade paper)

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2007

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked THE MESSAGE are from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson, copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of Nav- Press Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Author is represented by Wolgemuth and Associates.

Cover design by Lookout Design, Inc.

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Jack Graham, Unseen Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2013. Used by permission. (Unpublished manuscript—copyright protected Baker Publishing Group)

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 4 6/4/13 12:41 PM To David McKinley and Mike Buster, two gifted, godly men who have shared a lifetime of ministry with me. Your love and faithfulness encourage me daily.

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. (Philippians 1:3)

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 5 6/4/13 12:41 PM CONTENTS

Acknowledgments 9 Introduction 11

1. Pressing Questions We Can’t Help but Ask 17 2. The Dark Angel 35 3. Heaven’s (Mostly) Unseen Warriors 57 4. Battle Gear 77 5. Mind Matters 97 6. More Than Conquerors 123 7. Warfare Prayer 145 8. The Soulish Stakes of War 171 9. An Appointment We Cannot Break 195 10. Where Goodness Goes to Die 215 11. Paradise Found 239 12. We Win 265

Notes 293

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 7 6/4/13 12:41 PM ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

shley Wiersma, thank you for enabling me to develop the message of this book—for shaping my words and Aworking diligently to deliver the manuscript. Your love for God’s truth inspires me. Robert Wolgemuth and Associates, your encouragement challenged me to o&er my best e&orts and what I believe is my best book yet. The privilege of publishing my messages in book form has been given to me by my friends at Bethany House. Thank you for the partnership and for believing in me. Prestonwood, you are the most loving and supportive church imaginable. I am beyond blessed to be your pastor. Thank you for always believing the best is yet to come. Thank you to my daughter, Kelly, and her husband, Jason Flores, and to my sons, Jason and Josh, and their wives, Toby and Kaytie. There really is no greater earthly joy than to know your children walk in truth.

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 9 6/4/13 12:41 PM Acknowledgments

What can I say about our grandchildren, Ian, Levi, and Dylan Claire? You are my living legacy; of such is the kingdom of heaven. And to the love of my life, Deb Graham. God has melted our hearts together forever, in what truly is a marriage made in heaven.

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 10 6/4/13 12:41 PM INTRODUCTION

y fondness for baseball began when I was three years old. My dad placed a glove on the tiny fingers of Mone hand, a ball in the other, and e&ectively sealed the deal: I’d love the game all of my days. In the small Arkansas town where I grew up, neighborhood kids would wake with the sun and immediately head over to the sandlot we’d configured with primitive bases and something approximating a pitcher’s mound. We’d stop for ten minutes around lunchtime for a snowball cupcake and a carton of milk, but otherwise, from daybreak until nightfall, all we’d do is play ball. I learned the game by playing the game, and I loved playing that game. Hall of Famer Ted Williams once said that hitting a baseball is the most di"cult thing to do in sport, and I would have to agree. To hit a round ball with a rounded bat is one thing, but to do it when that ball happens to be careening toward you at ninety-five miles per hour is quite another. It’s so di"cult, in

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 11 6/4/13 12:41 PM Introduction

fact, that you hit it successfully even three times out of ten, and you just might land yourself right next to Ted in the Baseball Hall of Fame. For the twenty years I played ball, I was nearly addicted to the rush that comes from taking someone’s fastball and turning it around. The suspense of being at the plate with runners on base— Will it be a fastball or a curve ball? Will I strike out or drive in those runs? What’s going to happen next?— the windup of the guy on the mound, the whoosh of the ball as it speeds through the air, the crack of the bat as contact is glori- ously made . . . what’s not to love about this game? Years ago, the late great comedian George Carlin used to spend part of his stand-up act poking a little fun at my beloved sport. “The Di&erence between Baseball and Football,” it was called, and live audiences always went wild. He mocked the fact that in baseball, for instance, managers must wear the same uniform as the players. “Can you picture [then-head coach] Bill Parcels in his New York Giants uniform?” he asked. He talked about how baseball is played on a diamond in a park in the springtime , when all is fresh and new, versus football, which is played on a gridiron (insert manly grunt), in a stadium (yet another grunt), in the season when everything dies (further grunting, coupled with snarled facial expression). Oh, and in football, you wear a helmet, while in baseball you wear a cap. “In football,” he continued, “you have unnecessary roughness, while in baseball, you have—get this!— sacriﬁce . In football, players endure all the elements, while in baseball, if it rains, well, then, ‘We won’t come out to play!’” Carlin went on this way for four or ﬁve minutes before coming to his closing point, which was really the best part of the whole bit: “The objectives of the two games are totally di&erent,” he noted. “In football, the object is for the quarterback to be on

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 12 6/4/13 12:41 PM Introduction

target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack, which punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line. In baseball, the object is to go home—and to be safe.” 1 ——— My baseball-playing days are long behind me now, but I still love watching others play. There is something especially gratify- ing about watching guys who are at the top of their game because I know what it took them to get there. I know how many thank- less hours they spent lifting weights, running sprints, studying game ﬁlm, talking through strategies, preparing for their next competitor, and getting their minds focused on the only thing that matters to a pro: winning. The athletes who excel are those who are best prepared. The ones who take home the pennant are those who have persevered through setbacks, injuries, and loss after loss after loss, deter- mining that no matter what, they are going to get that prize. They prepare to win. They play to win. They persevere so that they will win. There is something very spiritual about all of this. For many decades now, I’ve been of the mind that the apostle Paul was a baseball fan. Or at least a sports fan. How else do you explain all the athletic analogies he used—running the race and wrestling principalities and refusing to shadowbox evil? It was this same man who wrote:

I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 13 6/4/13 12:41 PM Introduction

lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. P*+/+<<+=>@ 3:13–14

“I’ve got my eye on the goal,” another version says, “where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m o& and running, and I’m not turning back” (Philippians 3:14 Q*X \X@@=^X). For those who love God and have devoted themselves to his purposes in the world, the “prize” Paul refers to is not exactly a trophy or a pennant; no, the reason we prepare hard and play hard and persevere at every turn is that a heavenly reward awaits us—eternity spent at Christ’s side. ——— In the same way that I love watching a player operating at the top of his game, I love seeing a Christ-follower at the top of his or hers, going ninety to nothing for the sake of the Lord Jesus, awake and alert, praying big prayers and taking big risks for God, just pushing, pushing, pushing toward that marvelous next-life prize. This book is for people who want to live like that. It’s for people who want to understand the “rules of the game” we’re involved in here on earth. It’s for people who want to learn about and prepare for a competitor they cannot see. It’s for people who want to ﬁnd out how to persevere, despite discouragements and defeats. It’s for people who want to win. ——— There is nothing more exhilarating about playing baseball than that split second when you round third and start heading home. You see your coach going ballistic, waving you in with wild arms and a gigantic smile, and you know that you’ve got to give it everything you’ve got. And so, regardless of tired muscles

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 14 6/4/13 12:41 PM Introduction

and a heart that feels like it might thump its way right out of your chest, you turn on the afterburners and sprint to score. Billy Graham, one of my pastoral heroes, talks about this very concept in his terriﬁc book Nearing Home. As a young boy, he used to imagine himself standing in the batter’s box with bat in hand, “hitting a big-league grand slam into the stadium seats and hearing the crowd roar with thunder as I ran the bases— nearing home.” 2 Granted, it’s probably easier for someone in his nineties to envision going home than it is for someone in his twenties, for- ties, or sixties. But the fact is that each day that you and I live puts us one day nearer to home. My prayer in putting down the thoughts in these pages is that you would make the choices during this present life that will set you up for future success. My hope is that you’ll head for a home where you’ll be eternally safe.

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 15 6/4/13 12:41 PM Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen, both when we sleep and when we awake. —John Milton

ONE PRESSING QUESTIONS WE CAN’T HELP BUT ASK

hen I was twenty years old, I got the phone call nobody wants to receive. Actually, it was a message Wto return a phone call, handed to me on a small slip of paper at a youth revival where I was preaching, in the tiny Texas town of Crowell. This was 1970—long before cell phones arrived on the scene—and the only way someone could reach me was by leaving word with the secretary of the little church in Wichita Falls that was hosting the event. A volunteer at the conference placed the message in my hand, and as I read

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 17 6/4/13 12:41 PM UNSEEN

it, my heart sank low in my chest. “Please call your brother,” it read. “It’s an emergency.” As I made my way to a pay phone, my mind swirled with morbid supposition. . . . Had someone been injured? Someone in my family? A close friend? Had something happened to Deb? My wife and I had only been married for three months. Our lives were just beginning. Surely she was okay. I dialed slowly, trying to subdue the nervousness that fumbled my fingers over the keys. My brother, Bob, picked up immediately. “Jack,” he said, “it’s Dad. He’s been hit.” Hit? Hit with what? My incredulity betrayed the fear I felt deep in my bones. My father managed a hardware store that was connected to a grocery store in downtown Fort Worth, Texas, and took great pride in his work. He loved people and loved working with his hands, so he was a natural for the job. At fifty-six, he was vibrant, strong, in shape. He’d always been that way; in fact, during his growing-up years he was something of a street fighter, a rough- and-tumble guy who knew how to defend himself. But on this day, he would be caught o& guard. On this day, he’d lose the fight. Local merchants all over Fort Worth evidently had been put on high alert because of recent shoplifting activity in the area. The morning I was to begin my preaching duties at the revival two hours south of there—it was a Friday morning, I remember—Dad stepped outside into the parking lot of the hardware store to nail a “sale” banner to one of the posts that flanked the front door. He was partway through the task when a man darted through the grocery store’s front door and raced right past my dad, a carton of cigarettes tucked under his arm. Moments later, the grocery manager flew out of the store behind the man, yelling, “Shoplifter! Stop him! Stop him!”

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 18 6/4/13 12:41 PM Pressing Questions We Can’t Help but Ask

Seeing the manager’s panicked countenance and wanting des- perately to be of help, my dad did the only thing he could think to do: He flung the hammer he was holding at the shoplifter, who was a good twenty yards away by now and gaining distance. Dad had hoped to arrest the man’s progress and at least impair him long enough for police to arrive on the scene. But instead of hitting the shoplifter, the hammer whizzed right past his ear and tumbled to the asphalt, claw over handle twice. The mere fact that my dad had thrown a hammer at the man so enraged the crook that he stopped dead in his tracks, walked over to where the hammer was, reached down and picked it up, then turned toward my father and charged at him like a man possessed. As I say, Dad was well-versed in the art of self-defense, but that day as he threw his fists up in front of his face to brace for attack, his street shoes gave way. He lost his balance and fell backward, hitting his head on the concrete. Seconds later, the man reached my father, who was probably already knocked out cold, raised the hammer into the air and brought it down on my father’s skull. And then he did it again. And again. And again. By now a crowd had gathered, everyone fear-stricken and unsure what to do. Several people tried to distract the attacker, in an e&ort to get him to stop striking my dad, but each time someone took the risk to encroach on the small space where evil was having its way, the man hit my dad again. Onlookers said it was as if he had become an animal, as if he were actually deriving pleasure from bludgeoning my father nearly to death. The bloody attack went on for several minutes before the man’s accomplice arrived in a get-away car. The shoplifter jumped into the passenger seat and with his friend quickly fled the scene, while my father, a man who had done nothing wrong, lay there dying.

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 19 6/4/13 12:41 PM UN SEEN

Dad Was Always There When I was in grade school, my dad owned and operated a drive-in called the Dan-Dee-Dog, and as a little tyke of six or seven years old, I remember dipping corn dogs and scooping ice cream for customers, being proud that I could do it “just like Dad.” This was during our country’s days of innocence; it was the 1950s in Conway, Arkansas, and life was simple and sweet. Husbands and wives stayed married—even happily so. Kids were respectful. Churches were packed. Spirits were high. Stress was low. Baseball and apple pie and long summer days in the sun—these are the things I remember most from those blissful growing-up years. Admittedly, my dad was a big part of the sense of security I felt. He was my hero, my idol, my biggest fan. He was a man’s man, yes, but he also had a gigantic heart. He loved his family. He loved God. He was moral and upright and funny and strong . . . and, as far as I could tell, invincible. Every kid thinks his dad is invincible, I guess. I sure felt that way about mine. My father coached my baseball teams when I was a kid, and he never missed a single game. This perfect attendance fueled a belief in me that Dad would always be there. As a twenty-year- old, I still held this belief.

The Most Di!cult Good-bye Back in front of the hardware store, one of the city’s ﬁre marshals happened upon the shocked crowd and immediately radioed for backup help. Authorities arrived, and within minutes of the two criminals’ departure, they had been apprehended. They’d made it only three blocks.

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 20 6/4/13 12:41 PM Pressing Questions We Can’t Help but Ask

My dad was rushed to a nearby hospital as my brother hurried to get word to me that I needed to come home—fast. I hung up with my brother and called Deb, who had stayed home that week- end. We were living in Abilene at the time, both still in school at Hardin-Simmons University. The drive would take her three hours. As soon as she pulled into Crowell, I took the driver’s seat, and we headed north to Fort Worth. I was on pins and needles that entire trip: Would Dad pull through? Would he live to tell about this terrible tragedy? If he did live, would he ever be the same? His head injuries sounded so severe that I honestly didn’t know what to hope for, what to expect. Life unfolded at an achingly slow pace, in suspended ani- mation, even as we raced across the state to get to Dad. In my heart, I was preparing for the most di"cult good-bye of my life. Hopefully my instincts would prove themselves wrong. But somehow, I knew they were right. When Deb and I reached the hospital, we found my mom and my brother already there, loving sentinels guarding my un- conscious dad, willing him to recover, to talk, to blink, to show any sign that he knew they were there. But there would be no signs. For ten days, there was only the angry whir-clink-thunk of the high-tech machinery tasked with keeping my father alive. Day after day, I’d crouch beside Dad, take one of his big, strong hands into my grip, and say, “Dad, if you know it’s me, give me a squeeze.” And day after day, there was nothing. No squeeze. No acknowledgment that I was there. No “Dad,” as I knew the man. On the ninth day of the ritual that had until this point been futile, I took my father’s hands into mine, asked him to squeeze if he knew it was me, and then bowed my head as if resigning myself to one more letdown amid this colossally discouraging week. But then, just as I was ready to release Dad’s limp hand, I felt a

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 21 6/4/13 12:41 PM UN SEEN

gentle squeeze. It was subtle. It was weak. But it was there. Tears sprang to my eyes as God whispered to my soul: This will be the last interaction you’ll have with him. That squeeze will be his last. And it was. Thomas Benjamin Graham would survive for ten days in that “barely there” state, and then God would take him home.

So Many Questions

During that grueling week while Dad was hanging on for dear life, the exhaustion and despair caught up with me, and I needed a few minutes to think, pray, and sit in silence alone. I headed downstairs to the hospital chapel, which, thankfully, was totally deserted. I found a pew near the back, slipped in and sat down, and let pent-up tears ﬁnally ﬂow. I was angry—angry that someone had stolen my dad’s life from him . . . and also confused: Why would God take my one and only father in such a violent way? I felt rudderless in the way that only the loss of your hero can make you feel. With my head in my hands, I began to talk to God. Among skeptics there is a long-held assumption regarding the odd dynamic of bad things happening to good people that goes something like this: Either God cares about our painful cir- cumstances and personal tragedies down here on planet Earth but is powerless to intervene, or else he possesses the requisite power to intervene but simply does not care. But in my heart, there in the chapel that day, neither of these options sat right with me. I knew enough of God to know that he is caring, he is powerful . . . he is both of these things at the same time. But what to make of Dad’s gruesome death? Where was that third

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 22 6/4/13 12:41 PM Pressing Questions We Can’t Help but Ask

option I knew simply had to exist? And what was I to do with all my unanswered whys? Why this? Why now? Why me? Why my dad? Why this tragedy, for a family that loves the Lord? Was anyone really “up there”? And was he really in control? This is how it goes, I think, when hard events stop us short. Questions outweigh answers, and we ﬁnd ourselves dismayed and perplexed. A spouse calls it quits. A boss says he’s sorry, but your services are no longer needed. A wayward teen only digs in her heels further. A check bounces . . . and another, and another. A friend delivers a verbal blow. A parent is ruthlessly murdered. Even the most devoted Christ-followers can’t help but wonder sometimes if God really has their backs. Great faith still asks tough questions; great faith still sometimes doubts. Or often doubts, according to Madeleine L’Engle, who once wrote, “Those who believe they believe in God but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.” 1 I “believed I believed in God,” and in his goodness, in his rule and reign over both the things I could see, as well as those things I couldn’t. I had committed my life, my mind, my soul, my career to this set of beliefs, and had never once looked back. And while I didn’t look back even then, there in the chapel that day, I spent a signiﬁcant amount of time looking up, shaking my head in wobbly belief. You’re su"cient for this confusion I’m feeling, right, Father? You’re enough for me, even in the loss of my dad? You’ll help me interpret all this someday, won’t you? You’ll do something about this anger, this pain?

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 23 6/4/13 12:41 PM UN SEEN

Of Supernatural Things

Growing up in a traditional Southern Baptist church in Arkan- sas meant that from a very early age I learned a lot about the plan of salvation and personal evangelism and the perils of rebellion and sin. It also meant I learned almost nothing about “spiritual forces,” about the tension between good and evil, about the afterlife and heaven and hell—except to be told that one place was desirable and the other place deﬁnitely was not. I also knew next to nothing about the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in believers’ lives. To that last point, I understood that God’s Spirit was the third person of the Trinity. But as far as I could tell, he was MIA and had been for quite some time. “Spirit-led” anything was relegated to the snake handlers at the church down the street, and I wasn’t about to darken that doorstep. No, my family, my community, my church—we stayed away from all that “hype,” preferring to deal exclusively in the “natural” realm. Sure, supernatural stu& had happened during biblical times. But hadn’t God come to his senses since then? Still today, many self-proclaimed Christians are confounded by what really goes on—if anything—outside of the world we can touch and see. Yes, we believe in gravity. We even believe in love. We believe in photosynthesis, in electricity, and in oxygen, as well as in that nebulous thing called a soul . But when it comes to angels, demons, and the good-versus-evil spirit world, we’re really not so sure. Popular culture doesn’t do much to help us here. There is an inﬂux today of television shows, movies, books, video games, and news magazines obsessed with the paranormal, with what may be “out there.” And certainly, not all the perspectives are valid. What began building decades ago with Touched by an

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 24 6/4/13 12:41 PM Pressing Questions We Can’t Help but Ask

Angel, Angels in the Outﬁeld, Michael, The Preacher’s Wife, Teen Angel, City of Angels, Fallen, and more is culminating today with an onslaught of supernatural-themed media: Ghost Hunters, Walking Dead, True Blood, Paranormal Activity, and the Twilight trilogy. The list goes on, and the danger is this: To some degree, we rightly categorize these shows as “fantasy,” as nothing more than an entertaining way to decompress over a giant bowl of buttered popcorn after a long, hard week at school or work. And yet the messages they deliver stick. If we’re not on our guard, we’ll start dismissing as mere fantasy all that is unseen, including that which God says is real. Well-known cultural researchers The Barna Group conducted a survey centered on adults’ spiritual beliefs and found that nearly 60 percent of professing Christians do not believe that Satan is a living being, but merely a symbol of evil. Likewise, 58 percent believe the Holy Spirit is a symbol of God’s power or presence, but not a living entity with whom a person could relate. Perhaps more interesting still is that in the same survey, nearly half (47 percent) of Christians who said Satan was only a symbol of evil nevertheless agreed that a person can be under the inﬂuence of spiritual forces, such as demons; and almost half (49 percent) of those who agreed that the Holy Spirit is not a living entity but rather a symbol of God’s presence, conceded that the Bible is “completely accurate in all the principles it teaches.” 2 The contradictions are impossible to ignore: I think you’d agree that a person cannot be demonically possessed by a mere symbol; equally true, the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is a living entity who literally takes up residence in the life of a person surrendered to Christ and guides and directs that person throughout his days and years, serving as a comforter in times of need.

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 25 6/4/13 12:41 PM UN SEEN

Indeed, we are perplexed by all that is contained in the un- touchable, invisible realm. George Barna, head of the research group that conducted the study, summed up his team’s ﬁndings this way:

Most Americans, even those who say they are Christian, have doubts about the intrusion of the supernatural into the natural world. Hollywood has made evil accessible and tame, making Satan and demons less worrisome than the Bible suggests they really are. It’s hard for achievement-driven, self-reliant, indepen- dent people to believe that their lives can be impacted by unseen forces. At the same time, through sheer force of repetition, many Americans intellectually accept some ideas—such as the fact that you either side with God or Satan, there’s no in-between—that do not get translated into practice.3

Barna’s remarks strike at the core reason I decided to write this book—I wish I’d had important spiritual truths explained to me even earlier than they were. I wish I’d been given answers to questions that at the time I didn’t know to ask. Fortunately, God would place people in my path who would enlighten and educate me; but oh, the angst I could have avoided had I known the truth of how the world—both seen and unseen—works.

The Battle Is Real My ignorance about the prevalence and relevance of all things supernatural would start to be allayed in the early 1970s, when a revival swept through Southern Baptist circles, led by Bible teachers such as Ron Dunn, Jack Taylor, and Manley Beasley. They were men from our own (rather traditional, rather skep- tical) denomination who possessed an uncommon boldness

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 26 6/4/13 12:41 PM Pressing Questions We Can’t Help but Ask

for talking about Things We Didn’t Talk About—angels and demons, good and evil, the Holy Spirit as alive and accessible and eager to help Christians live their lives. I was in seminary at the time and remember being more captivated by what I was learning outside than inside of class. I began to add taboo volumes to my library, including Barnhouse’s The Invisible War and Spurgeon’s writings on spiritual warfare; what’s more, I had accepted preaching responsibilities for a church in Abilene on the weekends and even began to—gasp!—teach on these subjects. My theology surrounding the supernatural was being turned on its head, which, in hindsight, was a useful thing. Life experience was bearing out what my newfound book knowledge had told me was true: There was a very active unseen realm at work all around me, and to deny its existence would be akin to denying gravity. And yet a quick leap from a tall building was probably all it would take to remind me of that reality. Equally true, this invisible realm is inhabited—both by God and angels and spiritual forces fighting for good, but also by other forces, dark forces, satanic forces, forces that seek to do God’s people harm. How else could I explain my father being beaten to death, than to acknowledge such a battle in my midst? Scriptures I’d never really paid attention to now seemed to leap o& the page: “Though we walk in the flesh,” Paul says in 2 Co- rinthians 10:3–4, “we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.” In 2 Timothy 2:3–4, the “war” references continue. Paul refers to his young apprentice as a “good soldier of Christ Jesus” and reminds him that good soldiers do not get themselves en- tangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to “please the one who enlisted him.”

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 27 6/4/13 12:41 PM UN SEEN

In Philippians 2:25 and again in Philemon 2, Paul calls his friends and colleagues Epaphroditus and Archippus his “fellow soldiers.” Peter continues this sort of talk: “Beloved, I urge you as so- journers and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). The more I read of God’s Word, the more I realized there was little room for a “whistle while you work” mentality as it related to my ministry and life. My feet had been planted not on a playground, but on a battleground, and the battle was for my faith, for my family, for my purity, for my fidelity to Christ, for my very soul. How had I missed this before? In his bestselling book, A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis wrote, “You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.” Watching my father fade from this earthly life at the hands of a hammer-wielding madman forced me to come down on one side or the other: Either there was an invisible war being waged all around me, complete with forces both angelic and demonic vying for allegiance from every soul (including mine), or there wasn’t. I knew in my heart there was. And because there was, I wanted to be sure I was on the good guys’ side of the fight. I wanted my life to be a candle that illuminated the darkness, an idea first planted in my mind and heart when I was a boy of seven years old. My favorite television program back then was Life Is Worth Living with Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, an American archbishop of the Catholic Church, who is widely considered to be the world’s first televangelist. Each week, I’d sit on the greenish-brown carpet in our living room and stare wide-eyed at the chunky box with thick knobs that broadcast in black- and-white the bishop in all his “bishopness”—the dark suit,

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 28 6/4/13 12:41 PM Pressing Questions We Can’t Help but Ask

the priest’s collar, the flowing, o"cial-looking robes. And I’d watch with rapt attention all the way from the opening scene to his persuasive parting words. Bishop Sheen’s show always began the same way—a perfectly black screen, perfect silence. Then the sound of a match being struck, followed by a flame chasing across the screen, leaving a trail of light that brightened what had once been black. The hand that struck the match would then carry it over to a candle, reach toward the wick, and o&er up its light. Just then, by dramatic voice-over, you’d hear, “It is far better to light a candle than to curse the darkness!” It may have been a very bad voice-over, but instinctively I knew the message was good. Back in the hospital chapel, as I gathered up the pieces of my broken heart, that line came to mind. That simple phrase— it’s far better to light a candle than to curse the darkness —had served as the spine of my life philosophy through the years. From a tender age, it had prepared me to deal with the bad things that invariably happen in life: Yes, we should pound our fists over persisting ills we see, but unless we also put our hands to work in providing workable solutions to those prob- lems, what are we left with in the end but bruised fists and a bitter heart? Not only was I beginning to understand that there are spiritual forces at work all around me, all the time—forces for good and for evil as well—it also occurred to me that I actually could choose which forces to align myself with. Focusing my attention on these simple truths that day served to shift my focus from anger and confusion to peace and strength . . . even joy. Joy, even as my father lay dying? It was proof that God was still at his post, reshaping the awfulness of the week that had passed into something useful, instructive, and good.

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 29 6/4/13 12:41 PM UNSEEN

I thought about the man who had taken my dad’s life. And I wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t demanded to go his own way in life but had gone God’s way instead. My thoughts gained steam: What if I made it my life’s mission to reach as many people as possible with the good news of God’s grace, so that nobody else had to lose their dad because of a vicious, senseless crime? Yes, the world was broken and fallen and in a desperate state of sin. Bad things happened to good people—this was and always would be true. But if my e&orts could help even one self- focused person surrender himself to faith in Jesus Christ, one would-be murderer about to take the life of an innocent man, wouldn’t it be worth it to devote my life to this cause? Seeing the unmistakable ravages of darkness shroud my family gave me fresh resolve to use whatever light I’d been given to push back that darkness all the remaining days of my life. Admittedly, the notion was lofty. Who has time to “push back the darkness” when there is a lawn to mow, bills to pay, a job to hold down, errands to run, taxes to ﬁle, kids to raise, meals to prepare, and baseball games to watch? “The world is too much with us,” William Wordsworth once famously wrote. And was he ever right. We’re often too much “of this world” to focus on any other world that may (or may not) exist. But my plea to you—and also to me—is this: We mustn’t brush this stu& aside, thinking that what we don’t know won’t hurt us. What we don’t know absolutely will hurt us, and hurt us in meaningful ways. I don’t know a single person who wants to sign up for any more pain. I don’t know a single person who wants to fail at life. We only get one shot at this thing, and most level-headed people want to succeed. We want to get it right.

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 30 6/4/13 12:41 PM Pressing Questions We Can’t Help but Ask

We want to spend our time and energies on things that matter, not fritter them away on useless pursuits. If you fall into that well-populated camp, then I have very good news for you: There is a clear-cut way to succeed at this thing called life. There is a way to get it right. Learning how to discern and respond to the presence of God and his angels, how to avert the attacks of Satan, how to thrive during our time on earth and prepare for everlasting life in heaven—developing some spiritual muscle in these areas will usher in peace and provision and the fulfillment of unparalleled promise, all of which will serve us well for all of our days. ——— Years ago, The New Yorker ran an article about a Midwest- ern man named Virgil4 who had a hereditary condition called retinitis pigmentosa, which slowly but relentlessly eats away at the retina—the rods-and-cones part of the eye. Virgil had been virtually blind since childhood, only able to discern light from dark or the shadow of a hand moving in front of his face. After visits to more than half a dozen specialists, Virgil—now nearly fifty years old—finally happened upon an ophthalmolo- gist who promised complete restoration of the man’s sight. The day of the surgery came, and after the doctor worked his magic, Virgil’s bandages were removed. A small posse of sta& and family members had gathered in the clinic’s recovery room, eager to see Virgil finally see. But to their surprise, once Virgil’s new eyes were exposed, there was no exclamation, no cheer, no enthusiasm whatsoever from the now-seeing man. Wasn’t he excited that at last he had his sight? As it turns out, the reason for Virgil’s subdued post-surgery state was that while he could now discern colors and shapes and fine movement and depth, he had absolutely no idea what

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 31 6/4/13 12:41 PM UNSEEN

he was looking at. None of these images had any meaning to Virgil; after being blind for more than forty-ﬁve years, he had no visual memories to support his newfound perception. Yes, he now could see the world. But it was a world that made no sense to him. Over time, Virgil would learn to enjoy clear vision. He would come to appreciate the beauty of rolling hills, blooming ﬂowers, and the sun as it makes its descent. He would begin to grasp the wonder of a shifting shadow, stepping over a curbside puddle, and succeeding at reading an eye chart. But it took time, experience, and discernment before this sense of cohesion could take hold. Mark 8 tells the story of a man born blind whose friends brought him to Jesus for healing. As was the case every single time someone asked Jesus to heal him, the Great Healer in- stantly agreed:

He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” {{. 23–24

The text goes on to say that Jesus laid his hands on the man a second time, and when the blind man opened his eyes, his sight was perfectly restored. “He saw everything clearly,” says verse 25. In other words, no more trees. This is a fascinating story to me, because the process of my own spiritual eyes being opened to the unseen world that sur- rounds us unfolded in much the same way. My understanding developed. It evolved. It came into focus, slowly but surely. I was once just like Virgil, who could make no sense of what he

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 32 6/4/13 12:41 PM Pressing Questions We Can’t Help but Ask

was seeing. I was like the man who mistook people for trees. But over time, as I racked up life experience and divinely issued discernment, I started to see the world for what it really was— the good, the evil, the powers that be, the forces pushing and pulling and positioning and angling for a hold on my mind, my soul, my life. Still, I ﬁnd myself learning, asking God to bring into focus all that blurs. But I’m getting better. I’m seeing what I did not see before. I suppose this is what I want to say to you, as you consider concerning yourself with the invisible realm: If you truly desire spiritual eyesight—if you crave eyes that really see—then God will answer that desire with keen vision and will also show you things you’ve not seen. He will help you make sense of the life you’re living. He will lend wisdom to your questioning heart. Jeremiah 33:3 contains one of the most powerful promises in all of the Bible: “Call to me and I will answer you,” God says through his prophet Jeremiah, “and will tell you great and hid- den things that you have not known.” God has revealed truth that can disentangle our confusion and direct our every step. But we have to ask him for wisdom if we want this sort of life. We ask; he answers—this is the way this deal works. But what a deal it is! God is not afraid of our questions; he welcomes them, in fact. We can bring him our curiosity, our anger, our confusion, our whys, and know that he’ll o&er heartfelt answers in reply. He alone holds the keys to our understanding—about life that is both seen and unseen.

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 33 6/4/13 12:41 PM UNSEEN

Discussion Questions

1. What are one or two memorable life experiences that have caused you to question the existence of a “supernatural” realm?

2. What questions, speciﬁcally, did these experiences conjure for you?

3. What cultural inputs—TV shows, movies, and the like— have inﬂuenced your understanding of the supernatural realm? In what ways have they been helpful in guiding you to truth? Have any been harmful?

4. How did George Barna’s words strike you: “Many Ameri- cans intellectually accept some ideas—such as the fact that you either side with God or Satan, there’s no in- between—that do not get translated into practice”?

5. “The more I read of God’s Word, the more I realized there was little room for a ‘whistle while you work’ mentality, as it related to my ministry and life. My feet had been planted not on a playground, but on a battleground, and the battle was for my faith, for my family, for my purity, for my ﬁdelity to Christ, for my very soul.” What thoughts does this sentiment spur in you?

Graham_Unseen_EC_djm.indd 34 6/4/13 12:41 PM Discover how you can win every spiritual battle in Christ

We hope this first chapter of Unseen has opened your eyes to some of the realities of the unseen world.

There’s so much more Pastor Graham wants you to know about heaven and hell, good and evil, angels and Satan, and how you can win every spiritual battle. That’s why he wants to send you the full printed copy of Unseen to strengthen your faith in God as you discover more about his mighty power!

What you will learn in this book is vital for all Christians who want to take their spiritual life seriously. As Pastor Graham says,

“My plea to you is this: We mustn't brush this reality aside, thinking that what we don't know won't hurt us. What we don't know absolutely will hurt us, and hurt us in powerful ways.

“But this book contains very good news for you: There is a clear- cut way to understand things that cannot be seen. Things that have a profound effect on you and me. There really is more to life than what you see.”

So please request your full printed copy of Unseen today as thanks for your best gift to PowerPoint Ministries. We're grateful for your help to share the good news of Jesus Christ ’til the whole world hears!